HYDERABAD: Channeling public resentment against the shortage of water and prolonged power suspension in the province, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) has called for blocking the National Highway in protest on Wednesday, May 16.

The party’s Sindh chapter president and provincial parliamentary minister, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, informed the media on Sunday, during a press conference in Hyderabad, that the PPP would stage a sit-in on the National Highway.

He claimed that the PPP supporters, local residents and farmers will attend the protest in large numbers. Water scarcity has been affecting sowing of the cotton crop in the province, due to which farmers were in distress, he said.

“Nawaz Sharif [former prime minister and supreme leader of the Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz] had kept claiming that load-shedding would come to an end by 2018, but the rural parts of Sindh are suffering from around 18 hours of power cuts daily and urban areas between eight to 10 hours,” Khuhro said.

The PPP Sindh president alleged that the federal government was releasing water from Sindh’s share in two of Punjab’s canals. He claimed that cities located in the downstream of the Indus River were affected by acute water shortage.

PPP MNA Nawab Yousuf Talpur explained that the party had already registered protests against load-shedding and water shortage in the Senate and National Assembly. “It’s time to take to the streets,” he asserted.